How are Massachusetts' campgrounds?

Friday

QUINCY, Mass. -- Patriot Ledger teams find south of Boston state campgrounds a good deal but somewhat shabby.

Peace and quiet, clean bathrooms and plenty of rangers around – wait, which campground are you at?

The Patriot Ledger sent teams of reporters and photographers to three state-owned campgrounds south of Boston: Wompatuck State Park in Hingham, Myles Standish State Forest in Carver and Nickerson State Park in Brewster. To see how a private resort campground stacks up, a fourth team spent the night at Normandy Farms Camping Resort in Foxboro as a control.

Here’s what we found: Gorgeous ponds for swimming, quiet biking and hiking trails but also rowdy campers at Wompatuck singing until after 2 a.m. with no security patrols to stop them, rutted roads at Myles Standish and less-than-clean bathrooms. Our reviewers rated Nickerson highest of the public parks, with more staff, boat rentals and a camp store.

We’re not the only ones to notice sometimes gritty conditions at what otherwise might be jewels in the area.

Within the past year, the state Legislature has convened a new legislative parks caucus to deal with the state of the commonwealth’s parks. Several bills have been filed to improve state parks, and a new Friends of Myles Standish State Forest group was organized in the spring to partner work with the state agency to get things done.

“In general, our sense is the Legislature has gotten the message of the need to reinvest in all of the state’s public parks and forests,” said Frank Gorke, executive director of the Conservation and Recreation Campaign, an advocacy group dedicated to the state’s public lands. “Everyone goes to the White Mountains, but nobody goes to the Berkshires.”

In the most recent budget cycle, the state Department of Conservation and Recreation, which oversees state parks and recreation areas, received an additional $8 million – though, spokeswoman Wendy Fox said, it is equivalent to nearly level funding with $7 million worth of earmarked projects.

The state agency has seen a 34 percent drop in state funding between 2001 and 2005 and has a $1.6 billion backlog in capital projects.

To help with projects, a bill winding its way through the Legislature would allow the Department of Conservation and Recreation to keep more of the money collected from camping and other fees to reinvest in the parks.

In 2006, the state agency kept only $6 million of the approximately $20 million it made in park fees. The rest went to the state’s general fund, where it can be used for other purposes.

The Department of Conservation and Recreation charges $12 per night for state residents to camp, and $15 per night at four coastal campgrounds; New Hampshire charges $21 to $47 per night depending on whether there are water and electric hook-ups, and Vermont’s fees are $14 to $16 for a basic site.

Margot Mays, campground program manager for the state agency, said that the fees are based on a survey of 11 states in New England and other comparable states elsewhere, and are set in the middle of the pack.

A $9.25 fee is also charged for to make a reservation. That money goes to ReserveAmerica, the company that handles reservations. The state can’t afford to run its own reservation service, Mays said.

Mays said most complaints about campground conditions relate to the backlog of maintenance projects the agency can’t address without more money.

State. Rep. Michael Rush, D-Brookline, convened the legislative parks caucus for the first time in December after his own experiences using parks in his district. He’d noticed things that needed fixing in those parks and called the state agency to let them know, and he waited months to see if anything got done.

“I found that the more legislators I talked to from every corner of the state, it was the exact same thing – my experience was multiplied times a multitude,” he said. “A lot of people were pretty upset, to be quite honest, with the agency and how it had been functioning.”

About 40 members of the caucus met with incoming DCR Commissioner Rick Sullivan on Wednesday to find out more about his plans for the bedraggled agency.

“I for one am willing to give this commissioner the benefit of the doubt,” Rush said. “His whole philosophy is getting things done. We can be his best ally or his worst critic.”

Diana Schoberg may be reached at dschoberg@ledger.com.

BY THE NUMBERS

49: Where Mass. ranks out of 50 states in per-capita spending on parks and recreation.